


lemongrass and sleep

by cupsofstardust



Category: Naruto
Genre: F/F, Pining, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-30
Updated: 2019-08-30
Packaged: 2020-09-27 13:35:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20408608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cupsofstardust/pseuds/cupsofstardust
Summary: Her lips, her shiny, peach glossed lips, curve up into a delighted smile.Ino wants to kiss her.





	lemongrass and sleep

The sweet summer breeze carries with it the sharp scent of freshly mown grass.

Her eyes are closed against the sun, the backs of her eyelids brushed a vivid orange. Her hair escapes her ponytail, soft tendrils tickling her face as the grass under her tickles her neck.

There's a gentle sound next to her, like a deliberate exhale. She blinks, lifts a hand to shade her eyes, turns her head. The sound of her hair against the ground is loud in her ears.

Her gaze lands on bubblegum pink, dark roots just beginning to show, dark eyebrows curving gently over eyes like seafoam. Her delicate hand, chipped pink nail polish and all, poised above a plump mouth pursed into an O. 

The bubble wand in her hand is yellow, the soap dripping from the edges onto her tank top, her chest. 

Her gaze slants to Ino, the mischievous sparkle in her eyes making her chest ache, her heart race. It hurts, _God,_ it hurts, but at the same time there's a certain comfort in the pain. She doesn't want it to stop.

Her lips, her shiny, peach glossed lips, curve up into a delighted smile.

Ino wants to kiss her.

She swallows.

_Oh._

She wants to kiss Sakura.

The wand is dipped back into the bottle, lifted up to her mouth, the tip of her finger just a little wet with soap, and her face turns back to the sky.

A wobbly, iridescent bubble floats into the cloudless sky, far away from them.

* * *

Distant, indistinct chatter.

Laughter.

The slurping of a straw at the bottom of a drink, ice rattling.

A warm arm presses against Ino's, a knee knocking into her own under the table. Her head feels fuzzy; is she sick? Her heart is racing; maybe she's sick. She feels a little warm; she might be sick.

Sakura turns to her, offers her the rest of her pink lemonade. 

The only sick she is is lovesick.

Her heart flutters up into her throat and she takes the drink. Condensation drips onto her skirt, her thigh. She purses her lips around the straw, trying not to think about how she can taste Sakura's peach lip gloss on it, trying not to think about how _technically isn't this an indirect kiss?,_ and failing spectacularly. 

The conversation filters to her, muffled as if she's underwater. She's absorbed in the aroma of Sakura's perfume, something sweet, citrusy, but not offensive. Gentle, like the way her lips curve up into a smile when she's pleased, like the way her hair falls in soft waves around her face, resembling fresh cotton candy.

Sakura turns to her then, her eyes bright, _so, so bright,_ and her voice is clear as day when she says _How do you feel about a sleepover?_

And Ino nods. She nods because she can't speak, doesn't trust her voice, doesn't trust herself not to say the only thing that's on her mind. She nods because she's in love. She nods because _what else is she supposed to do?_

Sakura smiles, all white teeth and scrunched nose and glossy lips, and turns to Hinata and Tenten, and Ino feels a stab of disappointment. A stab of disappointment paired with a taunting voice in the back of her head whispering, hissing, _You should've known this is what she meant._

Somewhere, though, behind all that, behind the part of her brain that lives to humiliate her, she’s relieved, because she knows even if she were left alone with Sakura she wouldn't say anything. She wouldn't act on this horrible, painful, addicting feeling, because she's scared, of losing Sakura, of making a fool of herself, of _losing Sakura._

Her chest aches, not for the first time, not for a new reason, but because she could get lost in Sakura, _she does, all the time,_ but Sakura is fleeting touches that leave her skin burning and blurry Polaroids that only capture the shock of her bright pink hair and the faint taste of peach, _or maybe it's apple,_ on the tip of her tongue after a dizzy, spinning night of drinking and dancing and laughing and Ino—

Ino longs to _hold her,_ just for a moment, but Sakura never seems to stand still long enough. 

She loves that about her. She loves that Sakura is a whirlwind, full of energy, always trying something new, meeting someone new. She loves that she always makes sure to take Ino along with her. 

She loves Sakura.

And it's so, so simple to say it like that, safe within her mind and her heart, but the words die in her throat every time, turn to ash on the tip of her tongue when she sees her with him. When she sees her with the reason she can't say those three simple words, the reason the ember dies in her chest every. damn. time.

But she can't bring herself to hate him. She can't hate him for being with her. She can't hate him for seeing in her what every other person on the goddamn planet sees in her. It would be like hating the Earth for orbiting the sun.

It will happen regardless of Ino's feelings.

It's inevitable.

It's futile.

* * *

The sky is dark. 

Ino is still awake, the blanket pulled up to her chin as she focuses on everything but Sakura pressed up against her side, everything but her hand brushing the back of Ino's, everything but the racing of her heart and the shallowness of her breaths.

She listens to the steady breathing of Hinata on her other side, turns her head to see soft wisps of indigo hair escaping her braid. Her hands are cool against Ino's arm, her black nail polish perfectly unblemished. 

Beside Sakura, Tenten rolls over, making a soft noise in sleep. 

It's dark, but in the moonlight that washes over them through the glass doors she can see the gentle rise and fall of Sakura's chest, too measured, too even, to truly be asleep. She's pretending, but Ino isn't even trying to. 

Finally, with a sigh that sounds more like a shout in the quiet, Sakura slips from under the covers, her skin glowing in the moonlight. Her shorts are too short, her tank top too small, but if she doesn't care then neither does Ino. She spends a moment rustling around behind them for something, then she steps around them and slides the door to the balcony open.

She leans up against the metal rail, one leg bent, face turned towards the moon. In her hands is a pack of cigarettes, a lighter. As Ino watches, she pulls one out, lights it, and with two fingers places it between her lips where it dangles, smoke drifting from the tip.

In a moment of bravery, Ino gets up too. She wraps her blanket around herself, knowing it's too cold for her tank top and shorts, knowing this and thinking that Sakura is a little reckless for going without, yet still thinking that she is enchanting, even with her well-worn hand-me-downs, even with the smoke pouring from her glistening lips, even with her natural hair uprooting the sweet bubblegum pink she has come to love.

Sakura doesn't turn around when Ino stops behind her, nor does she when Ino sits up against the wall, shoulder pressing into the frigid iron rail. 

She shivers, wraps the blanket tighter around herself, and tries to keep her gaze on the stars, finds her eyes drifting to look at the sun instead.

And then Sakura shifts, her head turning, hair falling in her face, and Ino's heart is hammering in her chest when Sakura's gaze finally, _blessedly,_ finds hers, the sparkle in her green eyes brighter than the stars could ever hope to be. 

_Ino,_ she whispers, cigarette dangling from her fingers. 

Ino's voice disintegrates. 

_Do you ever think that sometimes you don't feel anything at all?_

How could that be possible? How could that be possible when she's standing right here looking like that and her palms are sweating and her tongue is ash and her heart is beating faster than it ever has _how could that be possible?_

Sakura drifts closer, a seraphim in the night, her skin glowing under the moon, rather, _with_ the moon, as if it had crept under her skin to illuminate her from within, and she kneels beside Ino, her bare knees against stone.

_I just,_ she whispers, her eyes dropping to Ino's mouth, _want to feel something._

And when she leans in Ino doesn't stop her and maybe that was a mistake but she can't bring herself to care, not really, not when Sakura's mouth tastes like a heady mixture of peach and smoke, not when her tongue presses against the seam of her lips, not when Sakura's free hand wraps around the back of her neck and lights her on fire.

_That's the thing about the sun..._

Sakura pulls away, licks her lips almost experimentally. Her lip gloss has rubbed off. She smiles, almost sadly, her green eyes far away as she stands up, drops her cigarette over the rail, turns to the door.

_Nothing,_ she murmurs, and goes inside.

Ino touches her lips, ignoring the stinging pain behind her eyes, the crushing pain in her chest, the taste of peach still heavy on her tongue. 

_...fly too close and you'll get burned._

**Author's Note:**

> title from she by dodie. 
> 
> comments and kudos are good motivation and they make me happy!! you can also find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/uzumakiverse). thank u!!


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